How to Be a Cat giá ưu đãi

《How to Be a Cat》 describes “how to be a cat” through simple instructions; purr, stretch, explore, pounce, chase, while Nikki’s distinctive paper cuts illustrate a kitten’s attempts to imitate an adult cat’s mastery of each skill. At times the kitten triumphantly succeeds in the instruction and at times he fumbles, creating a gently comic juxtaposition between text and image.

Nikki McClure is a self-taught artist who has been making paper cuts since 1996. She is the author and illustrator of Abrams’ Collect Raindrops; BYR’s To Market, To Market and Mama, Is It Summer Yet?; Appleseed’s Apple; and the illustrator of All In a Day, by Cynthia Rylant. Kirkus said her “illustrations make such nebulous concepts as hope and renewal accessible to young readers,” and Publishers Weekly said children will enjoy “the tenderness of McClure’s images.”

A brief author’s note reveals that this simple picture book, composed of words that describe the behavior of cats, is based on the real-life “blind and old cat” that came with the house McClure purchased in 2011: Bud. There are two cats here, an older black cat with white markings and a younger white kitten with black markings; the older teaches the younger everything it needs to know to be a successful cat, one skill per spread. On the “STRETCH” spread, we see the little cat in front of the larger one, both in yogalike poses, while “LISTEN” reveals tips of ears peeking above a window and a singing bird outside. Although this could have perhaps been pared back a bit (“CLEAN” and “LICK,” for instance, basically illustrate the same activity), the book is graphically beautiful. Rendered entirely in cut black paper, the black-and-white illustrations pop boldly on white backgrounds, while digitally added pale blue accents—the same color as the typeface—highlight a butterfly that appears throughout. Spare, with the feel of an art book, this gracefully illustrates the parent-child relationship. Preschool-Kindergarten.

–Ann Kelley